Theater Review: Superior Donuts

Kate Buddeke, Michael McKean and Jon Michael Hill Photo by Robert J Saferstein

Superior Comedy Dunked in Friendship
By Lauren Yarger
Two men used to living isolated lives find a way to reach out and extend friendship to each other in Tracy Letts’ delectable new play, Superior Donuts, playing on Broadway.

The multi-talented Michael McKean (of "This is Spinal Tap," "A Mighty Wind" and the like fame) plays Arthur Przybyszewski, the lonely owner of his family’s run-down donut shop in uptown Chicago (James Schuette, set design). He ex-wife recently died and he hasn’t been showing up to run Superior Donuts, lately.

His regular customers, cops James Hailey (James Vincent Meredith) and his partner Randy Osteen (Kate Buddeke), who has a thing for Arthur, Lady Boyle (Jane Alderman) who is a testy, impoverished older woman whom Arthur gives free donuts, and Max Tarasov, the racist Russian shop neighbor who wants to buy his store so he can expand his DVD business, all are worried, especially after the donut shop is vandalized.

Things start to look up, though, when Arthur hires a savvy, plain-speaking, street tough African-American kid named Franco Wicks (Jon Michael Hill). Franco, an eternal optimist, tries to convince the negative thinking Arthur to make some changes that could turn the business into something really superior. Francos’ engaging personality lights a spark in Arthur and he entertains the youth’s ideas about being nicer to customers, adding healthier selections and offering a poetry reading.

The two men develop a friendship, with Franco giving his boss tips on how to approve his appearance and win Officer Osteen. The boy, in an expression of friendship, asks Arthur to read his “great American novel,” written over years in a series of notebooks. He agrees, but balks at sharing anything back, like details of his life, or why his wife and daughter no longer are around. Franco, meanwhile, has a few secrets of his own that put him, his boss and the donut shop in danger.

The play is a real treat, both in its plot and character development. While Arthur is hesitant about sharing personal details with Franco, he does break from the action of the play every so often to talk to the audience directly about his family, his time as a draft dodger and how he deals with feelings about his father, who called him a coward. The effect, nicely directed by Tina Landau, doesn’t interrupt what we see, but gives us a way to understand this character better. This play is far superior (yes, pun intended), in my opinion, to Letts’ August Osage County, which won the Pulitzer and Tony awards, but which is far too depressing and contains way too much family dysfunction to engage me.

The cast is top-notch all around. Each character, even the smallest, a Russian thug, is fully developed and played by Michael Garvey. Lighting by Christopher Akerlind and sound by Robert Milburn and Michael Bodeen enhance the timeframes and mood of the dingy shop.

So treat yourself and indulge in this sweet production about the redemptive powers of friendship which hails from Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and runs at the Music Box Theater. 239 W. 45th St., NYC. For tickets, visit http://www.telecharge.com/. For discounted tickets, that support Masterwork Productions, click here.

Christians might like to know:
• The show posts a Mature rating
• Drug use depicted
• God’s name taken in vain
• Language